RUSS – OPEN FORUMS MAIN IDEAS
1) November 20th, 2 PM – 11 people
2) November 21st, 10 AM – 15 people
See time table for RUSS at end of page
1)
General Comments:
Middle States standards: we can choose to group standards rather than going sequentially.
Middle States will be looking for feedback loops and process.
All the standards need to include some way to assess whether or not they are working.
We need to put into one voice our collective stories.
We will have web site and post all the documents for review and comments - a very
transparent process - open to all campus. We will have monthly updates
We need to do more than just file a report.
The self study must be reflective of what’s happening now. If change is a “constant”,
how do we manage the change? How is it addressed and how do we respond?
How do we find out what the issues are? This is the time to collect the data that already
exists…not to create new data.
Main concerns:
 how to assess general education at Rowan. What do we want students to learn in
general education and what are they learning?
 rate of change is very fast, needs to be part of the Middle States report – theme? everyone is confused, what direction are we headed? - newer and newest faculty
is confused about mission and balance between teaching, scholarship and service.
 need to address how do we manage change - this is the engine that’s driving this
university and we are not sure whose hand is on the throttle.
 strike a balance between being evaluative and realistic without bearing our soul.
 looked at where we were and where we want to go
 administrative turnover at Rowan – need to figure out who is accountable for
carrying out plans, stability of plans, always in the state of being a draft, much of
what we do ends up being temporary. bridge turnover with some kind of constant
- why such turnover in provosts and other administrators.
 when we live in a time of organizational turbulence, uncertainty is part of it, how
we deal with uncertainty.
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the Rowan vision should come from our institutional values rather than from
administrative personalities.
how we serve the students, they tend to get the short end of the stick, they feel
they are in an endless loop, they are most vocal about what and what does not
work, we need to check what students thinking.
energize faculty to believe there is a positive outcome to all this effort.
don’t let the report drive everything - better have a processes independent of the
middle states report.
make sure we agree on definitions as we cross dept and division lines, not all
areas talk about things in the same words.
what about a questionnaire to faculty/staff and same to students and compare the
two?
have our own standard operating procedures (SOP), if we do have them, how well
do we follow them?
run a series of in depth interviews or focus groups to get at what the real issues
are.
2)
Similar general comments:
We need to look to look and the recommendations that were done ten and five years ago,
have we done it? and if not, why?
Want to make sure the process is authentic
Camden will also be apart of the MSSS.
We need to find out what is going on, how we know and not misinterpreted information.
Assessment and accountability and what kind of job we are doing. Assessment is a
philosophy and it is part of the way we do things. We need to continually reassess
ourselves. Is the institution doing the same thing? or are we not going to do it because it
is too much trouble?
The driving force is the mission of the institution.
We need to see if we are closing gaps, find holes and pay attention how we deal with
these holes. A good system is one that works and that continues to work.
We need to identify the current culture
Misinformation can always happen, so we need to do the best to provide clear and correct
information as it becomes available.
We need to find out all the good things that are happening.
Administration is fully supportive.
We want the steering and working committees to have the right people and if we are
successful in doing that, we won’t have to worry about how the process is doing.
Main concerns:
 how will we ask the community who they see we are and how we are reaching out
to them?
 students are primary stake holders - how are they going to be worked into how we
study ourselves.
 identity vs. image - what we are and what we want to be - are we as good as we
think we are? how are we perceived from the outside - is there a gap between
who we are and who we say we are?
 how many ways we should get people involved on campus? we should be aware
that not everyone used e-mail and web - some people don’t have access to
computers and we need to make a conscious effort to reach these people.– do we
have a system that works to get to these people? – recruit these people, use all
channels, let them know they should be part of the process.
 when there is leadership changes do the systems remain the same or do they
change or go by the way side? do we start all over every time? .
 how do we manage uncertainties
 how do we acknowledge or monitor change?
 how respond to change? PACE could be used as a great “case study”.
 how are we going to get people into the MSSS and get enthusiastic?. Some people
are willing to tell their stories, but they are worried about their job and how it will
be perceived.
 communication is problem on campus, things that happened 10 years ago people
still don’t know.
 have you thought of how the working groups would look like?
 language: tell the RU community that we want to be part of the MSSS process,
not to buy in - stress all the good reasons as to why people should be part of this
process – as a community we want to see what we look like, how to improve
things, and how we want to look like.
 will Pat and Don be able to talk to managers to let their employees be apart of the
working groups and devote the necessary time for the process to work?
Fall 2006
October 30-31
November 6
November 20-21
December 5
December 11-15
Spring 2007
January 8-11
January 22-26
February 12-17
February 19-23
MSSS Chairs attend MSSS Institute
Meeting of MSSS Chairs with President
Farish
Two open forum with key individuals for
brainstorming about directions for selfstudy and recruitment for the working
groups (WG) and Steering Committee (SC)
Formation of SC
Possible meeting SC
April
Posible SC retreat
SC report the organization of WG
First draft of questions generated by WG
Meeting with SC for first draft of Design of
the Self Study
Meeting with SC for last draft of Design of
the Self Study
Send Draft of Design of the Self Study to
Middle State staff liaison
Middle State staff liaison visit to RU
Summer 2007
WG and SC work on the SSR
Fall 2007
WG involve the RU community
WG submit draft of the SSR to SC
Spring 2008
SC finish the final draft of SSR
SC shares SSR with entire campus/ campus
open hearing
MSCHE selects evaluation team chair
RU and team chair decide on visit time
RU send SSR to team chair
Fall 2008
SC prepares the final SSR
BOT reviews SSR
Print/Bind/Mail SSR to team chair
Spring 2009
Team visit
March 5-9
March 19-23